Guardian of the Sea
by Quill of Molliemon
Summary: AU, one-shot, takes place before "A Wild Tomboy Appeared!". Young Kushina hears a mysterious song coming from the sea, and goes to investigate... Read, review, and enjoy!


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Pokémon. If I did, I'd have a lot of money…but I don't. So don't bother suing, you won't get anything out of it.

**Notes:** (Crossover, could be a crack!fic if you want) Here there be Naruto characters and Pokémon monsters! This is a _one-shot_ which takes place before "A Wild Tomboy Appeared!".

I hope that you enjoy it!

* * *

**Guardian of the Sea**

It started with a song. The music was sad and echoing, but also beautiful, like a whale singing in the deep sea. It crept up the sea cliffs and into her room, waking her up from a light sleep.

Kushina Uzumaki sat up in her bed and crawled over to her window, pressing her face against the glass. It was the dead of night, but the sky was clear of clouds and full of stars, and the moon was full and bright. And then there was the swinging light of the lighthouse out on the rocky point less than a mile away, flashing its powerful beam along the shoreline and out into the sea every few minutes. As she crouched there, looking and listening, around the regular sound of the waves crashing against the rocky shore the song continued.

The little red-haired girl listened for a few minutes more before taking action. She slipped out of her bed, pulled her sneakers out of her closet and put them on without tying them (she was barely four years old, she didn't know how to by herself), and pulled on her light summer jacket over the hand-me-down pajamas she'd gotten from one of her older brothers. After tip-toeing through the house so as not to wake her father or her brothers, she slipped out the side door and headed for the sea.

There was only one way to get down from her house up on the sea cliffs to the rocky shore below was a twisting wooden staircase. Her father had always told her to never go down the stairs to the sea by herself because she was too small; she was always to go with him or get one of her brothers to help her. But she couldn't take the time to wake one of them and persuade them to take her down the stairs, so she took one step at a time and was very careful. She needed to find the one singing the song before they were gone.

It had been a very long time since she'd seen her mother. All she could remember now of her mother was a pretty woman with long dark hair and a nice smile and a dozen lullabies with no words. Her father had only told her where her mother had gone once…

_"Your mother's gone away,"_ he'd said while down on the shore with her, staring out over the choppy sea. _"She…she heard the song of the sea—the most beautiful song in the world—and it carried her over the horizon and up into the sky."_

_ "…So when will she come back?"_ Kushina had asked him. _"Will she come back tomorrow?"_

_"Never,"_ he'd answered, and then walked off, leaving her brother Kenshin to watch her.

The little girl scowled in determination as she continued her slow march down the wooden steps to the dark sea. This song had to be the song of the sea that her father had spoken of that day—it was certainly the most beautiful music that she'd ever heard. She would find the source of this song and ride it to where her mother was up in the sky and make her come home.

With her mother gone, she was the only girl in the house, and that was hard. Her brothers tormented her dolls, made fun of her when she cried, and would never play with her because she was a girl. Her father always seemed to favor her brothers over her, he was always cranky when he tried to brush her hair and it always hurt when he did, and he was always unhappy when he had to take her shopping for clothes. She wanted to know what was so horrible about being a girl, but with her mother gone there was no one to ask.

_I will go and find Mommy,_ she thought as she drew near the bottom of the stairs. _I will bring her back so that she will make Daddy like me more, and make Kenshin, Ichi-tora, Ni-tora, and Arashi play with me. And then everything will be okay._

The shore was not a nice sandy beach like she'd sometimes seen on TV. It was rocky and slippery and one time Kenshin said he'd broken his leg there. But she was just as careful as she'd been going down the stairs and picked her way to a large flat boulder that jutted out into the restless sea. The spray from the waves was chilly, but it was a warm summer night and she had her jacket on so it wasn't so bad.

"Hey!" she shouted, cupping her little hands around her mouth to be even louder than she usually was (she had to be loud to be heard over four older brothers). "Hey you!"

The singing stopped and something rose up out of the sea not far from where she stood. It sort of looked long and snaky like her father's gyarados, but it wasn't. The creature was smooth and silvery and it had large eyes that looked like they were made of blue light.

_(Hello.)_

The voice was deep and gentle, somewhere between a man's and a woman's. It was kind and unthreatening and the girl somehow felt that the strange creature that it came from was very wise. She craned her neck to look up as the strange beast and smiled.

"Hi!"

_(Who are you?)_

"My name is Kushina Uzumaki and don't you forget it!"

_(I won't forget,)_ the creature solemnly promised.

"Were you the one who was singing?"

_(Yes.)_

"Could you take me up into the sky where my Mommy is, please?"

The long-necked creature tilted its head. _(Up into the sky?)_

"Yes, that's where my Daddy says that she went," Kushina nodded. "She's been gone for a long time and now it's time for her to come back."

The strange sea creature studied her for a long time before slowly nodding.

_(Alright. I will take you up into the sky with me.)_ It came closer. _(Just climb on my neck and—)_

There was a terrible roar and the scarred segmented body of Kraken slithered in-between her and the sea creature.

"Away, beast of the sea!" her father shouted. "Leave my daughter alone!"

With a startled cry the silvery creature lurched backwards and dove under the waves before the gyarados could attack it.

"No!" Kushina cried, reaching for it. "No, come back! Hey—"

Her father tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and marched back towards the stairs.

"Daddy! Put me down, put me down, put me down!"

She pounded relentlessly on his back with his tiny fists, but he didn't seem to feel it. He stormed up the steps with Kraken slithering after them. He carried her kicking and screaming all the way back into the house, where all of her brothers stood, half-asleep and squinting at the scene.

"Hey," Kenshin yawned. "What's going on?"

"Go back to bed," their father barked. "All of you. _Now_."

All four boys immediately obeyed. Their obedience was not out of fear of being hit. Father was simply The Boss and his orders were always followed immediately…especially when he was angry.

"Daddy—"

He sat her down on one of the hard, wooden chairs in the kitchen and glared at her—his face especially fearsome because of the scar that ran down the left side of his face dangerously close to his eye.

"What were you thinking?!"

"I-I was going to follow the song of the sea to get to Mommy—"

"You can't do that," he interrupted harshly. "Not ever."

Tears stung her eyes. "But—"

"Go to your room," he growled. "You're grounded young lady."

And that was the end of that.

Kushina hopped off the chair and ran to her room. She started to cry, but tried to stop. If her brothers saw her, they'd call her a sissy, and she was tired of being a sissy.

Maybe if she wasn't a sissy anymore, they'd play with her…

* * *

_"My name is Kushina Uzumaki and don't you forget it!"_

The guardian dove deeper and deeper into the black depths of the sea.

_Kushina Uzumaki…I will not forget._


End file.
